What was once a rumor has now been confirmed, Redbox has announced plans to launch a streaming service in 2011. The news comes by way of Coinstar CEO Paul Davis who confirmed the news during their recent earnings call.

“During the company’s quarterly earnings call Thursday, Coinstar CEO Paul Davis said that Redbox is in “detailed negotiations with a number of highly interested parties” looking to join forces on movie streaming, and that the company hopes to launch a “Redbox-branded” online service sometime in 2011.”

Of course, while we now know that Redbox is looking to go streaming, there are still plenty of unknowns — pricing, available plans and perhaps most important — the hardware. Otherwise, the Redbox branded service is expected to compete with Netflix in that it will offer an unlimited amount of streaming for a set price. And honestly, for them to be successful in the light of Netflix, it seems that is almost the only option available.